Tile floors are desirable for many purposes, since they are easily maintained in clean condition and in a high level of appearance, and are less subject to wear than carpeted floors, where the appearance level is reduced rapidly to a generally lower level than when originally installed. Accordingly, tile floors are highly desirable for use in multi-story public and government buildings; public assembly buildings; community buildings; educational buildings; religious buildings, medical buildings and hospitals; commercial and mercantile buildings, such as, banks, eating and drinking establishments, stores; office buildings; and residential buildings, such as, apartments and condominiums, housing for the elderly, nursing homes, and private residences; particularly in arid and semi-arid areas with sand and other areas where blowing sand is a continuing problem. Likewise, tile floors are highly preferable from a maintenance and durability point of view for rental apartments and condominiums, public housing, nursing homes, and the like.
However, as a disadvantage to the currently available tile floors in multi-story structures, those above the first floor of a building are highly transmissive to impact sound generated, for example, by the shoe heels of a person walking across the tile floor (women with spike heels and men with metal clips), or other forms of impact on the floor. The sound is transmitted to the floor below, and in the event of a heavy traffic area such as a restaurant, dance floor, apartments, condominiums, nursing homes, hospitals, or the like, sound transmission through the floor below to occupied spaces below can be a very serious problem, requiring the installation of carpeting even when, for other reasons, carpet is undesirable or not the best answer. As a result of this, it becomes difficult to place a dance floor, or a high-traffic restaurant, hospital, nursing home or apartments on an upper floor of a multi-story building since there are strong reasons or personal preferences to leave such establishments uncarpeted but, rather, with hard surface, enduring floors. The occupants of the floor below may be seriously disturbed by the continuous transmission of the impact of footsteps on the tile.
Similarly, in multi-story apartments and condominiums where it is desired to keep maintenance costs to a minimum, the impact sound of footsteps and the like from the apartment overhead can generate excessive disturbing noise and a continuous series of tenant complaints, forcing the installation of carpeting, with its added expense, periodic clenaing, replacement costs, and the like.
While previous attempt have been made to produce tile coverings having high loss of impact sound from transmission to other occupied areas, particularly areas below the source of impact sound, they have not been very successful. For example, wood tiles have been placed on 1/2 inch plywood which, in turn, rests upon 1/4 inch cork sheet lying on a wood or concrete structural subfloor. With this configuration, the sound damping has not been exceptionally high, and the problem of warping of the plywood requires the use of screws to hold the plywood in place, which, in turn, helps to transmit the impact sound to the structural subfloor.
In accordance with this invention, a horizontal-tile-array is provided having greatly reduced impact sound transmission through its horizontal-base-surface. If desired, this can be combined with improved thermal insulation or the floor supported on foam insulation, with or without a horizontal-disassociation-cushioning-layer, for impact sound isolation, and may be accomplished with a unique, dynamic system in which the tiles are resiliently carried upon the horizontal-base-surface. Despite this, in accordance with this invention, tile breakage, due to the receipt of an excessive load from a spike heel or a heavy woman or the like, can be essentially controlled or damped for good tile floor life, coupled with a greatly improved impact sound isolation.